Note to self: If something bites you and your skeleton starts snapping like a bag of microwave popcorn, maybe don't try to play hero afterward. Just sit down. Have some tea. Contemplate your life choices.
Too bad I didn't take that advice in time.
It started, as most horrible things do, with pain. Not the stub-your-toe or break-your-arm kind. I'm talking soul-ripping, bone-melting, scream-until-you-shatter-your-own-vocal-cords kind of pain. I was in the middle of the ruins of Sector 17, half a second away from being hollowed out by one of the freaks with a mouth like a bear trap and then?
Boom. My entire body declared war on itself.
First came the heat. Then the twitching. Then the sound snap-pop-snap as my spine decided it wanted to be a pretzel. My muscles pulsed like overcooked lasagna, twisting and rebuilding faster than I could think. Fur shot from my arms like I'd been injected with werewolf steroids. And my jaw? It cracked wide open like I was auditioning for a role in "Monsters Inc: Psychotic Edition."
I wish I could tell you I took it like a champ.
Nope.
I screamed.
A lot.
I sounded less like a mighty warrior and more like someone whose favorite anime character had just died for the third time. My legs bowed, my hands or whatever they were becoming clenched, and then my mind just…slipped.
The last thing I remember clearly as Elias the semi-normal, sarcasm-loaded human being I used to be was seeing my reflection in a broken car mirror.
Golden eyes: gone. Replaced by two pits of glowing red rage.
Fur everywhere.
Muscles bigger than my entire gym class combined.
I wasn't me anymore.
I was...something else.
Something dangerous.
Something hungry.
They called the outbreak a virus. Technically, it was. But what was inside me? The thing that had always made me a little faster, a little stronger, a little...different? That collided with whatever unholy beast bit me like Mentos in a Coke bottle.
Nature took one look and noped out.
I became a twelve-foot-tall nightmare with claws like swords, bones like armor, and a roar that turned concrete into gravel. My brain was replaced with pure, primal instinct. Violence. Hunt. Kill.
I saw movement.
Humans.
They ran.
They screamed.
I chased.
A parking garage didn't stop me. I went through it like a wrecking ball dipped in rage sauce. One kid maybe sixteen, wielding a baseball bat like it was a lightsaber stood his ground.
I almost admired him.
Almost.
Until I grabbed him like a ragdoll and heard the crunch.
Somewhere deep, buried beneath layers of rage and fur, human-me was screaming. Banging on the walls. Pleading.
But Beast-Me didn't care.
Next came the others survivors. Civilians. Soldiers. It didn't matter. If it moved, I pounced.
I was fast. Too fast. The Hollowed, which were terrifying in their own right, looked like slow-motion zombies compared to me. I ripped through them with ease.
Because they weren't prey.
Humans were.
The massacre wasn't just brutal. It was surgical. Efficient. I was the scythe; they were the wheat.
And I was enjoying it.
Until....
CRACK!
Something punched me in the head. Hard.
A sniper round, right between the eyes.
It didn't kill me. But it hurt. Like someone threw a lightning bolt into my brain and said, "Good luck!"
I stumbled. The red haze blinked for half a second. And I saw.
Everything.
The corpses. The blood. The little girl with a stuffed bunny in her arms, eyes open but unmoving.
My claws.
Dripping.
My breath caught, and for the first time, Beast-Me hesitated.
That hesitation cost me. A soldier covered in ash and terror raised his gun.
"It's still moving!" he yelled.
"Shoot it!" another voice screamed.
Bullets ripped across my chest. I didn't flinch. I didn't even bleed. Not really.
And you know what?
I didn't fight back.
Because they were right.
I was a monster.
I deserved it.
I waited for the kill shot.
But then...
A sound. Low. Guttural. Familiar.
More beasts.
Real ones. Hollowed freaks with dripping jaws and claws like rusted knives.
The survivors screamed again, this time not at me but behind me.
And something in me some stubborn, broken fragment of Elias growled, "No."
I turned.
And charged.
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't noble. It was blood, violence, and fury in one giant fur-covered package. I became a blender of claws and fangs. Ripping, tearing, crushing. They came at me in swarms.
Didn't matter.
They had claws?
I had bigger claws.
They had numbers?
I had wrath.
I fought like I was trying to murder the monster inside me. Every strike, every tear, was personal. Redemption wasn't on the menu. This was vengeance. And it was messy.
The gunfire stopped.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the survivors lower their weapons.
One of them whispered, "It's…protecting us?"
No one answered.
Because no one knew.
Then she showed up.
The woman.
I didn't notice her at first. She emerged from the smoke like it was her red carpet. Hooded. Calm. Clean.
Too clean.
Everyone else looked like they'd survived a blender fight. She looked like she just stepped out of a sci-fi runway show.
She wasn't afraid.
She was…interested.
Her eyes scanned me like a science experiment. And something about her sent alarms blaring in my skull.
"Fascinating," she murmured.
Her voice?
Oh yeah. I knew that voice.
My growl deepened. I stepped toward her.
She didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Of course not.
Because she knew exactly who I was.
Before I could do anything, the disk on the ground beeped.
Wait disk?
When did that get there?
WHUUUM!
A pulse of energy exploded outward, bright blue and loud enough to rattle my ribs. It hit me like a freight train made of tasers and bad decisions. My body froze. Limbs locked. My vision flickered.
The last thing I heard was her voice.
"Let's bring our experiment home."
And then?
Darkness.
When I came to, the world was upside-down.
Literally.
I was hanging from reinforced chains, bolted to a steel ceiling in a lab that smelled like antiseptic and regret.
Also? I was human again.
Mostly.
Still had the claws. Kind of. And my arms looked like they'd bench-press a truck without breaking a sweat. But the fur was gone. My mouth wasn't filled with murder-fangs.
I tried to move.
Bad idea.
Pain exploded in every joint. My skin ached. My eyes burned.
"Ah," said a voice from the shadows. "He wakes."
Of course.
Her.
She stepped into the light, her white lab coat somehow still spotless.
"You've been very helpful, Elias."
I spat at her feet. "Glad I could ruin your carpet."
She smirked. "Oh, you've done far more than that."
Behind her, monitors showed footage of me rampaging. Slaughtering. Saving. One screen showed the parking garage. Another showed the fight with the Hollowed.
Another…
Showed her injecting something into a creature's neck.
"I know what you are now," I said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"
"You made the virus. You made the Hollowed. And now you're experimenting on me."
She didn't deny it.
"I enhanced what nature gave us," she said coolly. "You were the perfect test subject."
I clenched my fists. The chains creaked.
She pressed a button. Electricity flooded the chains. I screamed.
"Don't get emotional," she chided. "You'll need that strength soon enough."
"For what?"
She walked up to me, eyes gleaming.
"For the next phase. You're going to lead the others."
I blinked. "Others?"
Then I saw it.
Behind a glass wall massive containment chambers filled with figures. Dozens of them.
All transforming.
All watching me.
And all bearing one horrifying similarity
They looked like me.
"Welcome to your new pack," she whispered.
I stared at the beasts. They stared back. Hungry. Angry. Obedient.
I wasn't their enemy.
I was their alpha.
And the worst part?
Somewhere inside…I felt it.
The pull.
The instinct.
The want.
I screamed,not from pain this time.
But from fear.
Because this wasn't the end.
It was just the beginning.